re: Kentucky's argument about the need for a GT rule is not valid (I think)

It really is more complicated than it appears at first glance. There would need to be a provision for stopping play on a no call, or exceptions made just for game ending plays. Who gets to initiate that? Then, if the play becomes reviewable, how much of the play are you reviewing? Is it the whole play or just a piece of the play? How technical do you want to be? In the first part of the play, players from KY struck the back board and had their hands in the net while the first shot was in the air on the downward trajectory to the basket, which by rule is goal tending on KY prior to the basket interference by LSU. That makes the play dead at that point, 2 points to LSU and KY gets the ball with whatever time is left. Probably not the outcome that people are thinking about but in my mind you would have to review the whole sequence because can you imagine the storm if you ignored the violations at the first part of the play but chose to enforce only those in the second part. Conspiracy theorists would love it but I am not sure that would be good for basketball.

In my experience as a former basketball official, the cry was always be consistent, let the players play, stay anonymous, as much as possible do not be the one that determines the outcome, and I could go on. This is from coaches, fans, and the organizations that I worked for. This was about as bang-bang a play as you will see. I can only imagine the trailing official responsible was looking and judging at the same time whether any of the violations gave a team an unfair advantage. Since the goaltending things happened prior to the ball being at the point of going in the cylinder, and the basket interference occurred as the ball was leaving the cylinder, that he made the split second judgment that neither affected the play, so let it go. Of course that's my impression and I have no idea what really went though his head. Just saying that the non calls seemed reasonable although probabaly technically wrong if subjected to a technical review. So when you start going down the road of reviewing them how technical do you want to be? That will be a tough one.

What happened to the Saints that ended a season is unconscionable. The impacts there go way beyond that game. In this one, everybody plays next week and has many more to come. So I agree there needs to be a method to prevent what happened to the Saints, and also to allow a look at game ending plays at the very least. It will be interesting to see where this goes.

I see this as like an out at second base. The rule says the defender has to be on the bag, but convention says otherwise. If an infielder turns a double play straddling the bag it's called an out. Similarly, the basketball rule states that if any part of the ball is within the cylinder no one can touch it. But convention is that when a ball hits the rim, and is clearly coming out, an offensive player can tip it in. That virtually never gets called goal-tending.